Hockey legend files lawsuit after getting iced-out of $3B Long Island project

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Former New York Islander and NHL Hall of Famer Patrick LaFontaine and a business partner are suing development executives after getting iced-out of the proposed $3 billion public/private project known as Midway Crossing. 

LaFontaine and Steve D’Iorio filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court earlier this month against two executives of JLL, the proposed project’s master developer, claiming the execs received “unjust enrichment” and seeking restitution for services rendered on the project by the plaintiffs. 

The lawsuit claims that JLL Vice Chairman Derek Trulson and Michael Shenot, managing director of JLL’s New York office, have “unjustly benefitted and been enriched” by the work of LaFontaine and D’Iorio who “expended substantial time, money, and labor for more than three years developing investors and tenants for the initial phase of the Midway Crossing project,” according to the complaint. 

LaFontaine and his Tide Line LLC are seeking a judgment of more than $1.3 million and D’Iorio is seeking more than $1.07 million, according to the lawsuit. 

First pitched in 2017 with a 17,500-seat sports arena as its anchor, the Midway Crossing plan pivoted to include a 180,000-square-foot sports and entertainment center, with 5,000 seats outdoors and from 4,000 to 6,500 seats indoors. LaFontaine was a consultant on the project and tapped to secure a professional minor league team as the anchor tenant for the facility and help promote it as a venue for collegiate, scholastic and youth athletic sports teams. 

“This is an opportunity to bring lacrosse, soccer, hockey, and other sports in one big compound,” LaFontaine told LIBN in a May 2022 interview. 

However, the plans for the proposed 179-acre development changed later in 2022 and the entire sports component was jettisoned, leaving the former Islanders center and his business partner checked off the play. The lawsuit claims that LaFontaine and D’Iorio, a former senior project manager for JLL, were effectively axed from the project in Nov. 2022 and prevented from “obtaining expected equity and fees.” 

Defendants Trulson, Shenot and a JLL spokesperson have yet to respond to requests for comment. Attorneys for plaintiffs LaFontaine and D’Iorio have also yet to respond to requests for comment. 

The most recent version of the proposed Midway Crossing development features a 300,000-square-foot convention center, about 2 million square feet of office space geared toward life sciences and biotechnology research, a 300-room hotel and more than 300,000 square feet of “destination retail.”  

The massive project would take as much as 15 years to complete all of its four phases, with part of the plan to connect the Ronkonkoma Long Island Rail Road station to a potential new north terminal at MacArthur Airport via an 1,800-foot walkable pedestrian corridor.  

The proposed development would require as much as $1 billion in public funding to be used for building infrastructure and public assets, including water, sewer, utilities and roads, as well as the convention center and airport terminal.  

Public stakeholders for Midway Crossing include Suffolk County, the Town of Islip, New York State and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, while Chicago-based JLL and Cameron Engineering, which merged into Rock Island, Ill.-based IMEG Corp. last year, are joined by Kansas City-based Crawford Architects as private-sector partners. 

The Long Island Regional Planning Council designated the Midway Crossing development as a project of regional significance in 2022. The Long Island Association listed the proposed project as one of its policy priorities in 2023 and again this year. 

The idea for developing the area between the Ronkonkoma LIRR station and MacArthur came about via a 2017 request for qualifications from the county with input from the Town of Islip. The Suffolk County Legislature voted in June 2018 to approve a memorandum of agreement for redeveloping the site, now mostly used for commuter parking. The county selected the initial JLL plan over other proposals that included between 1,200 and 1,900 units of multifamily residences, office space, a hotel and conference center, and a 2 million-square-foot industrial park. 

LaFontaine and D’Iorio are being represented in their lawsuit by attorneys Carol Sigmond, Joshua Deal and Christopher Luehs of the Manhattan law firm Greenspoon Marder LLP.